On-demand insurer for the gig and sharing economy Tapoly is in talks with investors to raise £0.5 million and allow the UK-based insurtech firm to leverage the potential of artificial intelligence, CEO Janthana Kaenprakhamroy tells Intelligent Insurer.

On-demand insurer Tapoly is targeting freelancers, sole traders, contractors, and small businesses with a range of tailored commercial insurance products, allowing them to pay for cover only when they need it.

The product range includes professional indemnity, public liability, cyber breach response, directors & officers (D&O), business interruption, personal accident and contents insurance. The firm underwrites with Lloyd’s capacity from ARAG and Beazley in the UK.

Tapoly is now planning to upgrade its platform with artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

“It’s quite costly to build an AI platform. You need to be well prepared from a data perspective, with know-how, and obviously capital,” explains Tapoly CEO Janthana Kaenprakhamroy, who will participate in the Intelligent InsurTech Europe 2018 conference on October 15 in London.

“We are in the process of closing a £500,000 ($655,500) funding round that will get us to our next milestone planned for the end of the year. We want to be ready for the renewal season,” she notes.

Tapoly has already secured 60 percent of the targeted funding volume through existing shareholders and is currently speaking to investors to complete the funding round.

“The AI platform will allow us to analyse this data and make decisions more efficiently.” The company wants to tap additional data to feed into the planned new AI platform, adding a higher level of granularity and improving its capability to further individualise products and pricing.

The data may, for example, include the length of freelancers’ contracts, their qualifications or project cancellations that can help better define their individual risk profile.

“The AI platform will allow us to analyse this data and make decisions more efficiently,” Kaenprakhamroy says.

Tapoly also wants to build a chatbot that can answer questions based on insurance expertise and its product database, helping customers to make better-informed purchase decisions. In addition, Tapoly wants the AI platform to include a user interface that communicates with customers and offers them advice via phone.

“We are looking for funding to cover our planned IT developments as well as staff expansion,” Kaenprakhamroy says.

Tapoly is in the process of hiring a chief operating officer with insurance expertise and plans to launch its platform in four different European countries in the next six to 12 months.

“We have blueprints for our AI platform. We are ready to go,” Kaenprakhamroy says.

“If all goes well, we will follow up with a £5 million Series A round next year, with advance subscription available with up to 25 percent discounts for early investors. This will fuel our European expansion as well as the next stage of our insurtech ambitions, which includes using the AI platform for predictive insurance and other exciting innovations.”

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